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In a statement posted on its website, IBM announced that it has severed all ties with the NY Blood Center on account of the organization’s decision to abandon 66 chimpanzees with no food or water on islands in Liberia. IBM joins NYBC’s other long term corporate partners, MetLife and Citigroup, in demanding accountability from the organization.

IBM severs ties with NY Blood Center over chimp abandonment

The announcement, which states that IBM has suspended its blood drives, marks the end of a 54 year relationship between IBM and NYBC.

IBM has terminated its 54 year partnership with IBM on account of the abandoned chimps

IBM donated space to the New York Blood Center for blood drives.

IBM’s decision to sever ties with the NY Blood Center marks the end of a 54 relationship.

The news comes after a protest at IBM and months of discussions with animal welfare advocates who have been working to convince NYBC’s corporate parters to demand accountability from the organization.

The Care2 petition asking IBM to demand accountability from NYBC was signed by over 163,000 people.

The NY Blood Center abandoned 66 chimps on islands with no natural food or water and cut all funding for their care. Here, the chimps await the daily delivery of food and water. (Photo: Jenny Desmond for HSUS)

After NYBC abandoned the chimps, the animals went a week with no food or water.

After conducting research experiments on approximately 500 chimpanzees for 30 years and promising to provide the survivors with lifelong care, NYBC decided to abandon the 66 surviving chimps with no food or water on islands in Liberia, leaving them to die of starvation and thirst. Using money donated by the public, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) has stepped in on an emergency basis to cover the monthly costs associated with feeding the chimps.

Among the many organizations that have spoken out against the New York Blood Center are Citigroup, MetLife and the Jane Goodall Institute

Dr. Jane Goodall, one of many leaders in the animal welfare community who have spoken out against NYBC’s decision to starve their chimps, wrote the following in a letter to the organization’s CEO, Christopher Hillyer, “I find it completely shocking and unacceptable that NYBC would abandon these chimpanzees and discontinue support for even their basic needs. Your company was responsible for acquiring these chimpanzees and thus has a moral obligation to continue to care for them for the remainder of their lives.”

The NY Blood Center made a promise to provide their chimpanzees with lifelong care.

In February, TheirTurn’s Donny Moss traveled to Liberia to visit and document the abandoned chimps; the Liberians who stepped in on a voluntary basis to save their lives; and Jenny and Jim Desmond, the American couple contracted by HSUS to oversee the care of the chimps.

Your Turn

Please thank IBM for taking a principled stand against the New York Blood Center by retweeting this tweet.

The News

After being strung along for months with promises from IBM, advocates fighting on behalf of the chimps abandoned by the NY Blood Center (NYBC) staged a disruption in the company’s lobby in NYC. IBM is one of NYBC’s largest corporate partners.

Over the past four months, IBM gave advocates the distinct impression that the company was genuinely concerned about the abandoned chimps and that it planned to demand accountability from NYBC, which operates a lucrative blood collection site at an IBM campus in upstate New York. Advocates now realize that company’s ongoing expression of concern was merely strategy to contain them — with the hope that they would go away.

Advocates say that, as IBM misled the community by stringing them along, a real atrocity with real victims was taking place. Advocates also say that, as long as IBM continues to turn a blind eye to NYBC’s crime while maintaining a mutually beneficial alliance with the organization, the company remains complicit.

For a 30 year period starting in the mid-1970s, NYBC conducted experiments on approximately 500 chimpanzees in Liberia, where they could capture, breed and experiment on them with little regulatory oversight. After completing the research, NYBC moved the survivors onto six islands with no natural food or water and made a public commitment to provide them with lifelong care.

The NY Blood Center made a promise to provide their chimpanzees with lifelong care.

In May, 2015, the NY Times reported that NYBC had “withdrawn all funding,” leaving the chimps to die of starvation and thirst. In order to keep the chimps alive, Liberians who had been employed by NYBC to deliver food and water, began to care for them on a volunteer basis. With virtually no resources and burdened by the Ebola outbreak in Liberia, these volunteers kept the chimpanzees alive until a coalition of over 30 animal conservation groups, led by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), raised funds from the public to pay for the chimps’ care on an emergency basis.

Chimpanzees abandoned by the NY Blood Center on islands in Liberia

NYBC, which has earned an estimated $500 million in royalties off of the research conducted on the chimpanzees, has publicly stated that it has no “contractual obligation” to pay for the chimps’ food and water and has shifted the financial burden of caring for their captive chimp population to the animal welfare community. Advocates are now demanding that NYBC’s corporate partners, like IBM, hold the organization accountable for its crime.

Your Turn

Use this tweet sheet, which targets IBM and other NY Blood Center partners.

Join the Facebook page: New York Blood Center: Do the Right Thing to stay apprised of news and to participate in online actions to pressure the NY Blood Center to provide lifelong care to their former laboratory chimps.